The Soul of Truth by Shaji Madathil

Author:Shaji Madathil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

The Twenty-Third Night

The evening light filters through the trees and the soil. Birds are returning home. For me, one more lonely day awakens into a night busy with thoughts.

Will man never be free of the stranglehold of thoughts? That whirlpool that sucks at the living and the dead. If man lacked the ability to think, to worry, wouldn’t our lives have been simpler? Easier? Now, we are perpetually stressed, thinking of tomorrow, dreaming of the future—forgetting to enjoy today and in the process, weakening our bodies and inviting death sooner, putting an end to all those dreams.

I was never short of questions. About anything and everything. They would suddenly pop up, maybe at the sight of a flower or a fallen leaf. And my friends, who were mostly at the receiving end of such questions, thought I was weird. When they teased and laughed at me, I didn’t take umbrage but laughed with them. That way, I kept my friends and my doubts. But in solitude, I pondered constantly, and sometimes questioned my own sanity.

My friends gave me a nickname: Plato. I wore it as a badge of honour.

“We have so much to study from the textbooks as it is. Why are you wasting time trying to learn even more, Uthaman?” Karim used to ask me frequently. He was my good friend. Pale, thin and quiet with a shy smile, he normally didn’t take part in any of our banter. His taciturn attitude earned him ample teasing from our naughty gang.

“Hey, Karim, why are you looking so grumpy? Don’t you like your lunch? Or did you quarrel with Zeenat?” That was Ravi.

Karim looked irritated. He didn’t like to answer any of those questions. His father was an alcoholic and didn’t care much about his family. His mother worked all day at a convent nearby to help bring up the children. On most days Karim didn’t bring lunch. But he was too proud to share our lunch, even when we offered it. He hid his helplessness and brazened it out behind the mask of a ‘don’t care’ attitude. Zeenat was a beautiful girl in our class. Sweet and friendly with everyone, she was sympathetic to Karim’s plight. And we, his friends, used that to needle Karim.

Karim didn’t show much interest in studies. In most classes, he sat with a blank look and couldn’t answer the teacher’s questions. The teachers, who would have normally scolded such students harshly, made an exception for him since they knew about his situation. Some of them even tried to help him financially. But he didn’t like to accept charity. The teachers understood and mostly left him alone.

Our principal was a legendary disciplinarian. Every afternoon, during the lunch recess, he used to emerge from his office and majestically survey the school. The school would suddenly go eerily silent around him. Running footsteps slowed to sedate walks, shrill voices muted to whispers.

That afternoon, the principal decided to take such a stroll. When he passed our class, Karim was singing at the top of his voice.

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